


Bittersweet

by sajere1



Series: Knights of the New Republic [1]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Season/Series 12 Spoilers, bitters' life story in eight pages or less, edited version of what i posted on tumblr, honestly not that edited, so be wary off that, some very vague passing mention of sexual assault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-30
Updated: 2014-07-30
Packaged: 2018-02-11 03:01:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2051052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sajere1/pseuds/sajere1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Lieutenant Caleb Bitters, Captain Grif is dead, and you just punched a hole in your locker.</p><p>That’s…well, that about sums it up, really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bittersweet

Your name is Caleb Bitters, and when you were eight years old your family went on vacation to Honolulu, Hawaii, because why the fuck not, you know?

You had to get four separate hotel rooms because your older brothers were being – not bitches, Dad said that’s a Bad Word and no, it doesn’t matter if Danny said it or not, Danny’s 18 and he shouldn’t be saying it around the house anyway – but your older brothers were definitely being something, so they all got singles and you slept on a stained pull-out couch in your parents’ room. You woke up at midnight and then three in the morning, blood thrumming with adrenaline and the taste of wind, and Danny threw a pillow at you when you tried to wake him too.

You were raised on Io, and your family’s impromptu vacation was the first time you’d ever been off-planet. You had a list of things you wanted to do. So far, you had accomplished: running barefoot in sand, seeing a sabertooth tiger (Danny said it was a rock, but he didn’t know Earth animals like you did), saying “Are we there yet?” and getting smiled at by a lifeguard. You had only been on Earth for one day. Yessir, things were certainly looking up.

The second day, you darted into the ocean the moment your family laid down their towels on the sand. Dad – unshaven and with no bathing suit – was searching through an Ionian newspaper he’d brought on the trip for Help Wanted ads. Mother was reading a book. Your brothers were all gathered around the lifeguard, who was blonde and muscly and flipped them off every time they crooned at her. Your first objective: swim to a sandbar.

You made it halfway before your lungs clogged with salt and sea brine and your nose filled with seaweed, and your hands grasped at nothing in the middle of the ocean.

+x+

You’re not quite sure why you ended up on Chorus. Fate. Chance. Pure bad luck.

When it comes down to it…well.

Sometimes, you wonder why you’re here.

+x+

Her name was Kaikaina, she told you after she stopped you from drowning by pressing your mouths together with what felt suspiciously like cooties but cleared up your seaweed sinuses. She was seven, she liked long walks on the beach, “And,” she said sagely, “my big brother saves lives all the time, so you should come see him. He’ll know what to do!” Comparing her regular expression to her smile was like comparing the views of the sun from Io and Earth – immediate, illuminating, warm.

You glanced over your shoulder. Father snored. Mother flipped a page in her book, adjusting her sunglasses so they became more crooked.

“Yes, please,” you said, voice hoarse, like maybe you’d gotten the entire goddamn atmosphere stuck in your throat or something.

She took your hand in hers – her skin was dark, maybe from the sun or maybe from her family, you wouldn’t know – and led you down the beach, chattering brightly about the season and tourism and her mother (“My mom’s two parts of the circus, ‘cause she’s twice as talented!”) and anything, anything to distract from the pressure on your shoulders that felt like ocean waves. You put your hand on your stomach to keep from vomiting, and she stopped to let you sit down on a doorstep.

You liked Kaikaina.

It was a good twenty minutes before you finally made it to the rusty shop at the end of the beach labelled _‘DENNIS’ SPACESHIP REPAIR.’_ She clutched you tightly by your elbow; her hair mingled with yours as her head swung, the dark color too similar to differentiate. “Dex!” she shouted over the sound of metal and whirring gears. “Dex, I need you! It’s an emergency!”

It was only a moment before Dex shoved through the door, eyes wild, hands clenched on the edges of the door. “Kai! Are you hurt? What happ – “ He cut off when he caught sight of you. He was maybe Danny’s age but his face was like Dad’s, dark eyes made up of newspaper cutouts, laughter lines replaced with the hour-long waits in unemployment lines. His skin was lighter than Kaikaina’s, but he shared her hair – or she shared his hair, you supposed.

Dex stared you down hard for a moment, before Kaikaina insisted, “I don’t think I did the CRP thing right, and he’s not from here. Could you check?” and his face softened.

Dex stepped aside, and you followed Kaikaina into the shop.

+x+

Your father died when you were twelve.

He was one of those innocent bystander deaths everybody hears about on TV but never really talks about, not like they should. They would call it the Massacre of Delani, later, when they wrote it down in history books and listed the casualties like statistics instead of people, but it was isolated. Someone was trying to build a union.

Your father had nothing to do with it. He was buying groceries. The unionizers were shitty shots.

[The first thing you learned in the army was how to hit a goddamn target, because you weren’t repeating that mistake.]

It didn’t set in until a week after the funeral, when Danny took Dad’s place in line at the unemployment center and the bags started to show beneath his eyes.

You ran around the house yelling “Bitch” at the top of your lungs, and your mother cried for you.

+x+

“Do your parents know you’re here?” Dex – Dexter, he had told you gently when you apologized for coughing up sand on his shoes – asked, strapping some weird device around your forearm as you sniffled beneath his gaze.

“No, but it’s okay,” you replied shyly. “They won’t miss me for a while.”

You thought he was going to berate you and tell you they’d be worried, because in your vast experience with adults this is the only socially acceptable answer anyone ever seemed to come up with. Instead, he just grunted in acknowledgment and squinted harder at the readings flashing across the digital screen on your arm. “Your vitals look fine,” he muttered, crouched and peering with enough intensity you had to resist the urge to squirm under his gaze. “I really doubt Kai actually used CPR on you. What’d she do?”

“She poked me in the side and kissed me.”

Dex snorted. “Yeah, you’re okay,” he ascertained. “Might have a fear of swimming from now one, but physically, fine.” With pudgy fingers, he removed the screen from your arm; you flexed your hand to get rid of all the needles pricking your skin. Dex glanced over at Kaikaina, who had been hovering nervously by your side since you threw up. “I need to get back to work before Lou catches me slacking. You two scram, alright?”

“You’re the best, Dex!” Kaikaina sang, swooping in to kiss her brother on the cheek; he waved her off with a smile just like hers, but older, warmer. She was already babbling about sand castles and exchanging addresses when she grabbed your hand again, and you barely managed to toss a ‘thank you’ at Dex over your shoulder before you were dragged back out to the sea.

+x+

You found your parents again three hours later, two minutes before they were about to leave.

They hadn’t even noticed you were gone.

+x+

Your name is Caleb Bitters, and when you were sixteen, you were kicked out of the house, because Dad was dead and Danny’s new salary could only support two and like hell was Mother leaving after all the shit she’d been through to keep this home.

You slept in an alley with a duffel bag duct taped to your side. You were lucky your high school served relatively decent food. Lucky that you hadn’t dropped out freshman year like you’d planned (because seriously, when would you ever need this shit in real life?). Sometimes, when you got really desperate, you would slip your hand in someone’s back pocket and come away with enough everything for a good few weeks’ worth of meals. Sometimes you felt guilty, but you only ever pickpocketed people who looked rich – and anyway, you were damn good at it, so why not put your skills to work?

As it turned out: because you might accidentally pickpocket a policeman’s son, who might know four types of martial arts.

He had you pinned to the wall in three seconds, tops, and you prepared yourself to be cuffed and taken away. At least you heard prisons had good beds. Instead, he tightly wrapped your wrists beneath your fingers and demanded, in harsh breaths, “What’s your name, kid?”

You thought, _he is going to break me against a wall I am going to leave feeling dirty on the inside and I don’t even have a good shower to wash the cooties away with._ You said, “Mugger #12, actor uncredited. Please note: this is the most uncomfortable sexual position I’ve ever been in.”

You thought, _cooties? Fucking really?_

Immediately the guy let go of your hands, backing away with his hands in the air. “I’m not – that’s not happening,” he stammered. “That’s not a thing. I’m just – “

“Planning to report me. Figured that out, genius.” Well, it was going better than you thought it would. “If we could hurry this up, I’d like to – “

“I’m trying to _help_ you,” the guy insisted and you stopped short, turning to examine him with a critical eye. He was a pasty guy, hair a rat’s nest and face scruffy. “Look, kid, you’re, like, 16. You wouldn’t be on the street unless you’ve been there your whole life or you got kicked out – and either way, I’m morally obligated to offer assistance.”

“But – “ You halted. “You’re a kid, too. What could you possibly do – ?”

“I’m nineteen!” Tall Dark and Angry hissed. “Look – if you would listen for two goddamn seconds, we might be able to work something out, alright?” He nodded at the grimy alley the two of you were still standing in. “Let’s sit down. Talk a little bit. Get to know each other.”

You hesitated a moment before nodding; you both drop, cross-legged and awkward, to the ground. “My name is Caleb Bitters,” you told him, voice sharp and barbed.

“Terrance Ganoosh,” he replied, careful to keep calm and open. “Let’s get started.”

+x+

“That’s abuse,” Ganoosh told you when you talked about your parents.

“They didn’t hurt me!” you defended, hand tightening its grip on your bag where you deposited it near a pile of used cigarettes. “They were just busy.”

“Neglect is a form of emotional abuse,” Ganoosh insisted, and you had nothing to say to that.

+x+

Terrance Ganoosh had a birthmark on his earlobe, was studying politics, had weighty opinions about issues on planets he had never been within a thousand miles of, and lived alone in a three-person apartment he paid for with three separate jobs. His nose scrunched up when he laughed and he preferred Star Trek to Star Wars and his last boyfriend left him for an alien chick and he was constantly caught between wanting to help people and not knowing how.

After the weirdest ten hours you’d ever spent with anyone in your life, you found yourself sharing a tiny apartment with the world’s most irritating college student ever. Of all time.

And when he decided to go fight the common man’s war on a tiny planet on the edge of the galaxy, years later, following him was the only logical course of action.

+x+

On your last day ever of school, you walked out to find Kaikaina sitting astride a motorcycle, waiting for you.

You didn’t recognize her, but the giant sign that read ‘TRANSPORTATION 4 CALEB BITTERS’ was kind of hard to miss, so you wandered over anyway, after a few moments. Her smile looked like it hadn’t aged a day, but her hair had grown ten years’ worth of length and her features – voluptuous, impossibly round – had bloomed lovely and new. “There you are!” she chirped the moment you wandered over. “You cut your hair!”

“Um,” you said, because. Um.

“Took me forever to find you,” she plowed on, ignored the lengthy stares some of the other students are shooting her, though she winked casually at Lisa Fallon. “Had to sell half my drug stash for a ride, too, and they made me leave the rest of it at home. I’m clean just for you. Better appreciate it.” 

“Um,” you repeated – and then, _“Kaikaina?!”_ as you finally realized why she seemed so familiar.

“There it is!” she beamed. “So I happened to be in the town for the day. Wanna go for a spin?”

“But – you – “ You cut yourself off, shaking your head. “Yeah,” you agreed, voice hoarse. “Yeah, just lemme tell my friend, okay?”

Third to last night before you got deported. Might as well spend it reminiscing.

Ganoosh picked up on the third ring when you call his cell phone. “I won’t be home for a while,” you told him in lieu of a greeting. “An old friend dropped by, so I’m gonna be hanging out with them for a while.”

“Hello to you, too, Bitters,” Ganoosh snarked. You rolled your eyes. “Do I need to leave for the night?”

Your face drained of blood. “It’s not like that!” you hissed into the phone.

“Sure,” Ganoosh snickered. “Be home by one in the morning. Buy some eggs while you’re out.”

He hung up the phone on you and you cussed. Your best friend was a douchebag.

You turned around, and Kaikaina gestured to the motorcycle with a daring grin. No helmets, you noted. It would probably be a dangerous drive. You might get hurt. You might even die.

You climbed on behind her.

+x+

You met Matthews after two years in the war. He was a rookie, then, but you were the same rank because the Chorus military system is fucked to hell, so you were still stuck showing him around. He was okay, mostly. You shared a history of watching that dumb X-Ray and Vav show when you were kids, but disagreed on who the best character was. He recommended you the Flynt Coal books and you stole some bacon from the mess hall that you both chewed on when you were supposed to be doing drills.

Also, his ass looked great in standard issue clothing.

And later on he would develop a major one-sided crush on Captain Grif, which wasn’t any of your business, even if it did turn him into a boring stuck-up kissass.

Fucker.

+x+

Kaikaina, it turned out, had not left all of her addictions at home on Honolulu. You knew, because she shared her vodka with you.

“You know,” she slurred, thigh bumping into yours as you watched the sun set far, far away from the ocean (some fears never quite leave you), “I didn’t happen t’ be in th’ neighborhood. I was…searching you out.”

“Really?” you said, voice imbibed with sarcasm as much as it was with alcohol, because some things were pretty hard to miss. “How come?”

She went silent, eyes too far away for her face, and it clicked. “Your brother,” you realized.

She looked up at you from beneath her lashes. “You remembered Dex,” she managed, voice catching in surprise. Then she shrugged, slouching further against him. “Yeah. He got drafted inta the army a couple years ago. And I don’t…I don’t know shit about war, but I can’t keep goin’ without him, and I’m. Scared. Christ I’m scared. And I saved your life, so that means I’m worth something, right?”

She swung so her legs bracketed around yours, staring intensely into your eyes. _“Right?”_ she repeated, voice an octave too high.

You thought about Chorus, which you knew nothing about expect what you’d read in history book, and ‘neglect is emotional abuse’ and what you remembered of Dex’s smile and Ganoosh smiling at you when you did the dishes without being asked.

“No,” you told her. “You’re worth something because you care about someone.”

When she kissed you, she tasted like the ocean, and you hated for that but you held her closer anyway.

+x+

Smith and Jensen, it turned out, were a matching set – you couldn’t befriend one without the other. As soon as Smith found the hiding place where you stashed your cheese curls, Jensen started stuttering her way through bad jokes and flushing red when he actually laughed at them. When Smith smiled, Jensen radiated sunshine; when Jensen smiled, Smith had to hide his eyes.

Sometimes, you thought about what life would’ve been like if you’d grown up with Kaikaina. Then you moved on.

+x+

“Shut the fuck up, Palomo,” is exactly when you know you’ve found the crew you’re destined for.

+x+

One day, Captain Grif showed up. Kaikaina wasn’t by his side.

Oh.

He didn’t recognize you, which you expected, because you wouldn’t have recognized him if Kai hadn’t given you a two-hour-long spiel about him in the last week before you got shipped off to Chorus. 

And Kaikaina wasn’t by his side.

And you followed him on his dumb kitchen raids and you called Matthews a kissass and you snickered while the other idiots did pushups and you got attached, because you’re an idiot who never learns his lessons, and now Captain Grif is dead like Dad is dead like Kai is dead like Mom and Danny and Matthews all left you alone to die to live but living like this it’s like you’re already dead.

There is Felix, and there is Smith&Jensen, and there is Palomo.

And there is you.

Like always.

+x+

Your name is Caleb Bitters.

You are in your early twenties. Male. Unmarried. Rank of Lieutenant in the New Republic of Chorus.

Your locker has a hole in it from when your captain died and your knuckles are constantly bloody and when you love things they die, so you don’t give a shit about anything anymore.

And that’s your life.

That’s all.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so between band camp and summer homework, I have not had much time to read things this week, so when I wrote this story the night of episode 12 and posted it unedited on tumblr, I was thinking something along the lines of "This will probably be done again soon."
> 
> Because I haven't been on AO3 at all, I didn't realize that "soon" meant "in the course of two days" and "this" entailed "9000 fics all with the same fucking basis and like 99% of them are better than yours."
> 
> Posting it anyway. #YOLO. Also, now the first part in a series, because now I've started the cliche I have to live it out.


End file.
